Jays offence singing the blues after latest loss

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BALTIMORE — Before every series, the Toronto Blue Jays and their coaching staff gather for an advance meeting to discuss the next opponent. When Friday’s meeting convenes in the Rogers Centre, the discussion may include a new enemy: themselves.

The Blue Jays lost three straight games in Baltimore. They scored a total of three runs, only one of which was earned. They collected 16 hits and batted .168. During one stretch, they went 20 consecutive innings without touching home plate.

“We’ll have a chance to talk (Friday) in our advance meeting,” manager John Farrell said after his club lost 5-2 Thursday night. “I don’t think anybody likes coming out of here with a sweep.”

Asked what he would tell his troops, he replied: “There’ll be a message.”

The road trip started with four straight victories in Kansas City and ended in humiliation against the Orioles. Once a Toronto patsy, Baltimore holds a 5-1 lead in the current season series.

“I’m not really worried about our offence,” said Jose Bautista, who went 1-for-11 in the series and is batting .194. “I know we’re going to pick it up. I just hope we do it sooner than later.”

That was as close as he came to displaying concern after the latest loss.

“I’m not going to dwell on it,” he said. “We’ve got more important games ahead of us. Our pitchers are doing awesome, so on the offensive side we just would like to give them better support.”

The Jays take a 10-9 record into a weekend series at home against Seattle.

“We’ve got to play better collectively, as a group, as a staff,” Farrell said.

Bautista said he did not expect anything unusual in Friday’s advance meeting, nor did he plan to address his teammates.

“Other than just playing hard and trying to lead by example and doing things like that, I don’t think I have to do anything extraordinary (in the meeting),” he said. “If I started doing stuff like that when things are not going great, it’s just not going to come natural.”

As for his own lacklustre performance so far, he said the solution is straightforward.

“I got myself out three times today by swinging at bad pitches. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again: Swing at strikes. That’s all I’ve got to do.”

Rookie Drew Hutchison allowed the Orioles two runs on six hits in five-plus innings. Baltimore starter Brian Matusz came in with a 7.98 ERA and a personal 12-game losing streak, but the Jays managed just five hits and two unearned runs against him in six innings.

The game turned in the eighth when Adam Jones homered off Casey Janssen. Two batters later, Chris Davis hit a two-run shot off Darren Oliver.

In the sixth, Luis Perez bailed Hutchison out of a jam. In the seventh, Janssen did the same for Perez. But Jones led off the eighth with his sixth homer.

The Jays’ only scoring came on a three-base error by first baseman Nick Johnson on an Eric Thames bouncer in the sixth. First ruled a triple, the play was changed after the official scorer noticed that Johnson had waved his backhand at a playable grounder that wound up in the right-field corner.

That gave Toronto a brief 2-1 lead. But in the bottom of the sixth, Hutchison gave up a double and an infield single, on which shortstop Yunel Escobar made an ill-advised throw that bounced past first, allowing the tying run to score. From deep in the hole, Escobar had no chance to get Jones on the play.

Farrell started an unusual lineup, sending up eight right-handed batters against the left-handed Matusz. Typically, when he loads up with righties, he has kept lefty-hitting Colby Rasmus on the field, but in this case he rested Rasmus and put Rajai Davis in centre.

Thames was the lone lefty hitter in the lineup, leaving Kelly Johnson and Adam Lind on the bench. Brett Lawrie batted second for the first time in his career and Ben Francisco served as the DH.

This was nothing new for Matusz. Thames was just the fifth left-handed batter he had faced in four starts, and for good reason. Entering the game, righties were batting .396 against Matusz.

But for the past three nights, it hardly mattered who batted for the Jays or which batter’s box they occupied.

Hutchison improved on his debut performance last Saturday in Kansas City, when he allowed five runs in 5 1/3 innings. Against Baltimore, he allowed six hits, walked one and struck out two.

“I think I threw the ball pretty well,” Hutchison said. “I got into a nice rhythm there for four innings. I felt like I executed some quality pitches.”

National Post

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